


When the Trill Calls

by shopfront



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Crossover, Gen, POV Outsider, Reunions, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: The Doctor still won't tell them anything important about herself, but luckily there's another old friend just waiting to cross their path. If only Ryan, Yaz, and Graham knew the right questions to ask.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Relationship Exchange 2019





	When the Trill Calls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akingnotaprincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akingnotaprincess/gifts).



They’d all come tumbling out of the TARDIS behind the Doctor like usual, eager to check out somewhere new as they picked their way through a corridor crowded with crates. Ryan had been last out and fallen behind when he’d stopped to check the door was properly shut. Now he was hurrying to catch up, only to turn a corner and nearly trip over everyone where they stood in the middle of the corridor—with their hands raised above their heads.

A pair of strangers in front of them were demanding to know how they’d all got in. But before anyone could tell them, an ominous whoop-whoop noise started up somewhere in the distance. It quickly rose in volume until they were all wincing.

“Hello! We’re—,” Yaz started to yell. But the Doctor quickly stepped in front of her, cutting her short, as the young man Yaz was yelling to pointed a small device at them.

“Oh boy, here we go,” Graham muttered, only for Yaz to shush him. Which was about when Ryan realised the device looked disconcertingly like a very small, very shiny sort of weapon.

Future then, he figured. Or at least alien. The Doctor had been very closed lipped about where exactly it was that they had landed.

The three of them moved in closer behind the Doctor as one, exchanging nervous glances. The repeating sound of the alarm continued, but as usual—despite everything—the Doctor looked blithely unconcerned. Almost jaunty even, as she lowered her hands and made a particularly confusing gesture behind her back that Ryan'd hazard guess could mean either ‘run away now’ or ‘put your hands down’.

“This area is under quarantine, how did you get in here?” the man demanded. He was slowly edging towards them as he spoke, his voice rising with each word in an attempt to be heard over the racket, until the woman beside him held out a hand.

He stopped immediately as she said something too quietly for them to hear. Not that it stopped Ryan from straining forward uselessly to try and catch a word or two. But whatever it was, it made the man look sheepish as he lowered his weapon and dropped back a few paces.

“But Lieutenant Dax,” he protested half-heartedly as he went, only to subside quickly when she didn't reply.

Still not speaking, the woman pressed a few buttons on a small box in her hands as she watched them—though her eyes practically sparkled, and Ryan could see a dimple in her cheek, like she trying to hold back a smile. Then she tilted her head, as if waiting for something.

“Hello, old friend,” the Doctor said cheerfully as soon as the alarm cut off mid-whoop.

Eyes narrowing, Lieutenant Dax stepped towards them. Carefully she looked the Doctor up and down, while the Doctor stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels and waited. And waited. Then waited some more, while Ryan exchanged pointed looks with Graham and Yaz glared at the man still fidgeting nervously with his weapon behind the Lieutenant.

Finally the Lieutenant broke into a bright smile of her own.

“It's good to see you again, Doctor."

The Doctor surged forward immediately to take the woman in her arms. They laughed and hugged, and the Lieutenant admonished her partner—Ensign, apparently, which seemed like an even weirder name to Ryan than Dax—to put his phaser down while the others stared, agape.

“You what?” Ryan asked nobody in particular, bewildered.

“Old friend, huh,” Graham muttered, his brow furrowed. Then he huffed, reluctantly impressed, as the Doctor swung the Lieutenant off her feet and dipped her—still laughing—like a heroine in an old film.

The other stranger was finally holstering his weapon even though he didn’t look any more enlightened than they were, but the Doctor was ignoring everyone in favouring of swinging the Lieutenant around in one more circle.

“Love the new look, Dax,” the Doctor said once she’d finally put the other woman back down. “I don’t think you’ve ever been so… tall.”

Dax looked pleased, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she looked down at the Doctor now they were standing so close. “I don’t think you’ve ever been so short,” she teased in return.

Ensign cleared his throat and Dax immediately stepped back. “Stand down, Ensign,” she said again, her tone serious and clear as a bell.

“But Lieutenant—”

“That’s an order. There’s been no transporter breach here, start checking the next corridor while I scan to confirm.”

Looking confused and still a little angry, Ensign reluctantly complied. Though he glanced back over his shoulder at them suspiciously the entire way until he was gone from sight, hidden when a set of doors whooshed shut behind him.

“I really should report you," Dax said slowly with a smirk. "But I just need to take a few readings and then we can talk.” She waved her handheld device about in a way that the Doctor seemed to understand, because the Doctor immediately took a step back and gestured for Dax to get started.

“Yes, yes, of course. Go, scan things! Enjoy yourself! We’ll just be waiting back here when you’re done,” she said, ushering the others back towards the bend in the corridor to make room for Dax to work, even though Dax was chuckling and already heading for the opposite end.

“Doctor, who are they?” Yaz asked quietly. This time they got the Doctor's attention, though she still kept half an eye on Dax.

“Starfleet officers. Love a Starfleet officer. Generally very few lethal weapons, and you just need to say your culture has its own Prime Directive and Bob’s your Uncle: no awkward questions. Makes things almost relaxing, really. Probably why I don't visit as often as I should,” the Doctor replied absently as they all watched her watch Dax wave the device over the walls.

Yaz smothered a smile behind her hand. “Is that thing she’s using like your screwdriver?”

“No, it most certainly is not,” the Doctor huffed in reply, looking affronted as she finally tore her gaze away from Dax. “My sonic is far more sophisticated than that old thing. Now, I know this isn’t quite the beach I promised you—”

“Too right,” Graham agreed.

“But this is a lovely century, really. Peaceful, mostly, and friendly… well, also mostly. But unless I’ve got the time wrong,” she said as she leant over and licked a wall. The others wrinkled their noses, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Which I don’t think I have, tastes fine, so the TARDIS has probably landed us smack bang right in between the two wars that happen in this sector this century. Lucky timing, really, when you think about it.”

“You just said it was peaceful,” Ryan pointed out wryly.

“And what’s a ‘Prime Directive’?” Yaz asked.

“Stupid rule. Boring. Never mind that,” the Doctor replied.

She fished her sonic out of her pocket and finally turned away entirely from Dax, just as Dax twitched and stiffened—like she could hear the Doctor's words and didn't entirely approve. Frowning, Ryan turned back to the Doctor just in time for her to finish giving instructions.

“You two, go pump short and grumpy out there for information about whatever that alarm was. Can’t be anything to do with the transporters no matter what Dax said, because nobody in Starfleet uses that particular alarm fortransporter incidents for at least another two hundred years. Graham, go back and guard the TARDIS. Keep an eye out for intruders," she said, patting Graham on the back as she finished.

Yaz raised her eyebrows. “And what will you be doing, exactly?”

“Guard the TARDIS? Why do I have to guard the TARDIS?” Graham demanded. “And what exactly am I supposed to do with an intruder if I spot ‘em? Stuff them in one of these crates?!”

Ryan snorted. “I’ll swap with you. That Ensign fellow didn’t look like he’d be much fun, did he, Yaz?”

“That’s not the point, Ryan. Doctor, why do I have to be the one to guard the TARDIS?”

“Because I’ll be cozying up to our new informant and scanning for transporter signals just to be certain, of course,” the Doctor said sunnily as she slipped past them, ducking behind a crate and out of Dax's line of sight. Quickly and quietly she removed a panel of the wall and started poking her screwdriver around inside, frowning and muttering to herself.

A moment later Dax looked over again and paused, her hand raised as she looked the three of them over. They all tensed as her eyes darted past them, searching for the missing Doctor. They braced for her to yell for her trigger happy friend or at least call out a question to them, but her smile only widened as she went back to her work.

Sighing, Yaz shrugged. “C’mon Ryan, guess we’d best leave them to it,” she said over Graham’s protests, grabbing Ryan by the arm as she passed.

But when Ryan looked back just before the door closed behind them, he saw Graham disappearing back around the corner—and the Doctor clicking the wall back into place before stepping up beside Dax. The Doctor was already talking a mile a minute and gesturing wildly, and Dax seemed to be listening closely as she bumped her shoulder against the Doctor's companionably and continued her scans.


End file.
